Not So Quiet By Hellen Zenna Smith - 1639 Words

There seems to be a clear and concise message that Hellen Zenna Smith tries to get across in her novel Not So Quiet. That message implies no matter the war, it is a grizzly and destructive force and it can shake free even the deepest-rooted forms of social norms and values. Smith emphasizes this idea straight from the first part of the novel when Tosh shaved off all of her hair (14). She described how necessity took over in these women’s lives. This necessity caused most of the women to look at their roles in society differently. Some of the values and norms that are questioned in the text are, nationalism, femininity, sexual morality and social standing. In the beginning of the book, we see that the women feel bonded by nationalism. This nationalism has brought them to the front line as ambulance drivers during World War I. Nellie â€Å"Smithy† Smith, the main character of this novel, questions this nationalism many times throughout the book. Even Tosh pokes fun at Smithy when she calls her â€Å"one of England’s Splendid Daughters† (Smith 13) because of how Tosh sees Smithy’s high class standing as part of the reason she has this nationalistic obligation. In that same line, Tosh pokes fun at the fact that the older generation is sending the younger generation to war, due to what she feels is pride-lead stupidity. World War I was a severe and terrible war, marked by young men dying in some of the most horrible conditions ever possibly imagined. These women, being ambulance